The senator did not seem to understand that the ruling on embryos would lead to fewer children being born, not more.
One of the most maddening aspects of the Republican plot to control women’s bodies is that, in many cases, these people couldn’t pass a ninth-grade biology class (and oftentimes, it’s more like fifth grade). Yes, from claiming an ectopic pregnancy can be reimplanted to suggesting that the anatomy of a human female is no different from that of, say, a dog or a horse, the conservatives trying to take away reproductive rights and bodily autonomy often have no idea what the f–k they’re talking about. And Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville is obviously no exception.
When asked on Thursday if he had “a reaction to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on the fact that embryos are children,” Tuberville said, “Yeah, I was all for it. We need to have more kids, we need to have an opportunity to do that, and I thought this was the right thing to do.” Informed that IVF is a method by which people are able to have children when they otherwise could not, and that some clinics have paused the procedure as a result of the ruling, Tuberville responded, “Well, that’s for another conversation. We need more kids. We need people to have the opportunity to have kids.”
After another reporter asked what he had to “say to the women right now in Alabama who no longer have access to IVF, and will not, as a result of this ruling,” a clearly stumped Tuberville answered: “That’s a hard one. It really is. Really hard. ’Cause, again, you want people to have that opportunity…. We need more kids.”
Oh he knows what it actually does- it effectively criminalizes the sort of health care tangentially related to abortion, and when you’ve driven reproductive health care out of your state and made it illegal to travel to get it, you’re that much closer to having total control over women’s bodies. He doesn’t give a shit about babies, he knows that defining embryos as babies will give reactionaries and jurists the ability to treat women of child-bearing age as presumptively criminal if they don’t seem to know ‘their place’.
The whole pretending-to-care-about-babies or life is just a pretext to make pursuit of the thing they really care about- controlling women- socially respectable.
I don’t disagree with your point but this guy is really really dumb. I wouldn’t put it past his narcissistic ass to not even read an article let alone follow legal cases.
Hanlon’s Razor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor?wprov=sfla1
My favourite of the razors
Something else to think about… IVF is expensive, so often only done by well-educated adults who have enough disposable income to go through with the procedure. This would result in well-fed, educated, healthy children, who we all know will be more likely to vote progressive, not join the military, not end up in the prison system etc. He doesn’t just want babies, he wants poor babies.